The 10 Best Roasting Pans

This wiki has been updated 23 times since it was first published in June of 2015. If you and your family enjoy a full bird or large joints of meat, your kitchen needs a decent roasting pan. Here you’ll find a selection of models that include some so easy to clean and chef-friendly that you won't want to wait until the holidays roll around to use them. A few will even make an elegant addition to a well-laid table, too, giving each meal a touch of refinement.
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This wiki has been updated 23 times since it was first published in June of 2015. If you and your family enjoy a full bird or large joints of meat, your kitchen needs a decent roasting pan. Here you’ll find a selection of models that include some so easy to clean and chef-friendly that you won't want to wait until the holidays roll around to use them. A few will even make an elegant addition to a well-laid table, too, giving each meal a touch of refinement.
When users buy our independently chosen editorial
choices,
we may earn commissions to
help fund the Wiki.
Skip to the best roasting pan on Amazon.

10. Maverick Mesh

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Perfect for cookouts and barbecues, the Maverick Mesh can manage both large hunks of meat and assorted vegetables all at the same time. Once your food is finished, you can move it easily thanks to the unit's tough dual handles.

9. Cook Pro 561 4-Piece All-in-1

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When you choose the Cook Pro 561 4-Piece All-in-1, you get not only a roasting pan but also a lasagna pan, each with a chrome rack. The handles are foldable, so storage is simple, and they're made from stainless steel, which makes placing them into the oven easy and safe.

8. Granite Ware Covered Round

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As an alternative to cheap, disposable options, the Granite Ware Covered Round is hard to beat. Its carbon steel construction is safer than foil, and its nonstick porcelain makes cleanup a breeze. The surface contains no harmful chemicals, either.

7. Calphalon Contemporary 16-Inch

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The Calphalon Contemporary 16-Inch is a robust model that can take on turkeys of up to 25 pounds, doing so with even heating thanks to a full aluminum core. When your meat is finished, move the pan to the stovetop for effortless deglazing.

6. Viking 3-Ply Oval

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The Viking 3-Ply Oval would fit well into a kitchen that doesn’t have a ton of room for single-use items, as it not only works as a covered roaster but also as a stockpot or a Dutch oven. You can even use the lid as an attractive serving dish.

5. Calphalon Tri-Ply

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The Calphalon Tri-Ply has riveted handles, a nonstick rack, and a reflective surface for viewing all sides of a cooking food. The aluminum core produces excellent conductivity, and the included lifters make picking up even heavy, 20-pound turkeys a cinch.

4. All-Clad Large Silver

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Get nearly endless use with the All-Clad Large Silver, a roomy 13-by-16-inch model that features a warp-resistant base. Oven-safe up to 600 degrees Fahrenheit, it's also dishwasher-safe and nonstick by way of a highly polished cooking surface.

3. Le Creuset Signature Roaster

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The cast iron construction of the Le Creuset Signature Roaster leads to even heat distribution, while the nonreactive enamel provides durability and ease of cleanup. It’s also versatile: use it with anything from an outdoor grill to a halogen oven.

2. KitchenAid 16-Inch

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A three-ply option, the KitchenAid 16-Inch has a brushed exterior and a polished interior, but it doesn’t just look good, it’s effortless to use, too. In fact, it has a curved lip that helps you pour with ease and a coated rack that’s nontoxic.

1. Cuisinart MultiClad Pro Rectangular

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With a pure aluminum core and stainless steel interior and exterior, the Cuisinart MultiClad Pro Rectangular is a must-have thanks to its Heat Surround technology that offers maximum heat distribution and retention. The included rack is solid stainless steel, as well.

What Makes A Roasting Pan Unique

Roasting pans are also much deeper than other types of pans because they’re designed so that a rack can sit on the top, with plenty of room below.

A roasting pan is, first and foremost, made to go in the oven rather than just on a stovetop. So it is made from materials that are oven-safe like clay, which is ideal for browning food, cast-iron, which is a wonderful conductor of heat, stainless steel, and non-stick coated enamel. These can all be subjected to high temperatures for prolonged periods of time, without leaking into the food or posing a fire hazard. Oven baking is, overall, less hazardous than stovetop baking, with the latter being a major cause of fires and burns.

Roasting pans are also much deeper than other types of pans because they’re designed so that a rack can sit on the top, with plenty of room below. You can place meat on the rack, and let the fats and juices fall down to the pan beneath. Having the juices trapped under your meat will keep it moist. Roasting pans are also deep to give one the option of skipping the rack, and simply laying their meat over layers of vegetables. This method lets the juice from the meat marinate the vegetables. Roasting pans are not only deep, but they’re also wide and long because they need to hold large poultry like turkey and entire roasts.

Another special use of the roasting pan is creating a water bath. Some more complex recipes like custard require very specific cooking conditions; they usually need constant moisture while inside the oven and also cannot handle the direct heat of the actual oven. For this, one makes a water bath, which is essentially a large basin in which the small custard dishes sit, surrounded by water, in the oven. A roasting pan is the perfect tool for this.

Understanding Roasting Techniques

There are several ways you can cook food in an oven and they make a big difference in the flavor and consistency of your food. A baked chicken will come out quite different from a roasted one. While baking and roasting both use dry heat to cook food, that’s almost all they have in common. When you roast food, you want the end result to have a brown, flavorful crust. In order to achieve this, you need a higher temperature than you would for baking, and you must brush the outside of your food with some sort of fat, like olive oil.

There are several ways you can cook food in an oven and they make a big difference in the flavor and consistency of your food.

Baked foods usually call for lower temperatures than roasted ones. Baking is more commonly used for foods that are not solid on the inside to begin with — like cake or muffins — but will harden while they cook. Baked goods go through complex processes that turn them from batter to something edible. Roasting is best for foods that start with a solid interior, like a thick post roast or a whole turkey.

Broiling is best for thin cuts of meat; using this method on thicker cuts can result in risky undercooked meat. This technique utilizes very high temperatures in the oven, but for only a short period of time. When one sets their oven to broil, it sends heat into the food from above it. This both sears and cooks the food at the same time. One can look at broiling like reverse grilling because it directs heat from above rather than below the food.

Why Roasting Your Food Is Easier

The various cooking methods you can use to make your food not only affect the flavor of your ingredients, but also their nutritional content. Roasting food, for starters, does not call for as much calorie-dense oil and fats as other foods. You typically just brush a small amount of oil on the outside of your food to begin the baking process, rather than smothering your food in oil the way one does with frying or sauteing. It is still important to know which fats are best for each cooking method — rapeseed oil is best for roasting —
or you can end up with overly greasy baked food.

Not to mention that baked foods are always lower in calories and fat content than the fried version of the same food.

Roasting your vegetables actually increases their bioavailability, which means your body can better utilize their vitamins and other nutrients. Roasting is also a much healthier means of preparing vegetables than boiling, which can deplete the food of water-soluble vitamins.

Roasting is certainly healthier than one of the more popular cooking methods today, that of deep-frying food. The extremely high temperatures required to deep fry foods causes the ingredients to release a compound called advanced glycation end products, which can lead to carcinogens in your food. Not to mention that baked foods are always lower in calories and fat content than the fried version of the same food.

A final unexpected benefit of any sort of oven baking is the simple time one must put into it. Studies have found that the more time a person spends on making their food, the more conscious they are of what they eat and how much they eat. That awareness is not as high when deep frying or microwaving food.

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Melissa Harr is a language-obsessed writer from Chicagoland who holds both a bachelor of arts and master of arts in English. Although she began as a TEFL teacher, earning several teaching certificates and working in both Russia and Vietnam, she moved into freelance writing to satisfy her passion for the written word. She has published full-length courses and books in the realm of arts & crafts and DIY; in fact, most of her non-working time is spent knitting, cleaning, or committing acts of home improvement. Along with an extensive knowledge of tools, home goods, and crafts and organizational supplies, she has ample experience (okay, an obsession) with travel gear, luggage, and the electronics that make modern life more convenient.

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